


Made with Hands to Hold

by Ranni



Category: Avengers, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Abomination, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Cutting, Eating Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hulk Smash, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, M/M, Monsters, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Past Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Phil Coulson is still fake dead, Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies), References To:, SHIELD, Self Harm, Self destructive behaviors, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Team as Family, Thor Is Not Stupid, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Warning: Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-23 19:25:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12514728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranni/pseuds/Ranni
Summary: Here’s a Halloween-inspired story that isn’t about Halloween at all, but arrives just in time for Halloween.OrTony is (like) the walking dead, Natasha sees a monster (and then another), Clint hears dead people (and two that aren’t dead at all), and JARVIS is a ghost (in the machine).





	Made with Hands to Hold

 

**Billion Dollar Zombie**

Tony Stark is a tosser and a turner.

It always begins with rolling over to his other side and trying to find a new, comfortable position on the pillow. Then maybe his leg feels achy and he tries lying on his back for awhile. He flips his pillow over. Fluffs it up. Squishes it back down. Adjusts it under his neck. Then he’ll attempt to sleep on his stomach, followed by an immediate return to his side, wondering why he ever bothers trying the 'laying on his stomach' thing. He gets chilly and pulls the covers up over his shoulder, gets too warm and pushes them back off. And all the while he's trying carefully not to think about anything, not let his brain get awake and buzzing, because the instant _that_ happens it's all over; he'll start glancing at the clock and wondering how much longer to continue the charade, or if he should just give in and get out of bed.

Pepper, when she’s home, drops into bed and then never moves—she's like a stone, like a corpse, like a hot blond mannequin that someone stuck into Tony's bed as a cruel joke. She snores softly and has no idea of how valiantly he battles the jealousy that creeps up as she sleeps peacefully when he cannot. At least he doesn’t have to worry about waking her up with his tossing, turning, and loud angsty sighs.

His mattress and pillow are of the best quality that humanity has to offer, and whenever anyone even claims to come up with something better—be it from a laboratory or from the Home Shopping Channel—he has JARVIS order it immediately. Tony would have no qualms about buying and using a product made entirely of fairy wings, kitten blood, and unicorn hair in the pursuit of a good night's sleep.

The upside, and downside, of having good friends is that everyone has an insomnia cure they are certain he has not tried, the one thing they are sure will work.

_Warm milk_ , Steve suggests, and Tony marshals every bit of the infinitesimal sliver of maturity he possesses to keep from rolling his eyes. That ‘foolproof’ solution is even older than the Captain.

_Light therapy,_ Pepper announces, delighted to have combined her love of natural cures with his love of technology. Tony sits in front of a glowing box for an hour a day feeling bored and foolish, vaguely wondering at what point he should apply sunscreen. After a week he takes the light apart and puts half of it in a robot, kicks the other half under a table to spend eternity. He kisses Pepper and tells her that it helped. Sometimes lies are good for relationships.

_Melatonin_ , Rhodey advises. _I take it all the time and sleep great_. Tony takes two of the tiny white pills the first day, four the second day. On the third day he seriously considers grinding up the remainder of the bottle and snorting it, but doesn’t, being fairly sure that JARVIS would tattle on him. He never notices any difference and leaves the bottle in the community kitchen for someone else to steal.

_Relaxation and guided meditation._   _Oh, and drink more water._ Those are Bruce’s go-to answers for almost any ailment. Visualizing waterfalls and drinking extra water only makes Tony have to get up to pee, and once he’s out of bed he has a strict no-return policy. He tries relaxing breathing the next night, but gives that up when he finds himself trying to match song lyrics to the breathing patterns. He’s pretty sure that staring at the ceiling and breathe-singing ‘Helter Skelter’ is not what Bruce had in mind.

_May I suggest drinking less caffeine in the evenings, Sir_? JARVIS offers mildly as Tony brews a new pot of coffee at ten p.m. He clutches his chest and gasps in wounded shock. “No, you may not!”

_Have sex_ , Clint suggests with a smirk and a wink. _That makes always me sleepy afterwards_. There’s a lot of validity to that idea, but it’s also pretty shitty advice when one’s girlfriend travels out of town as often as Pepper. “You offering to help me out, Barton?” Tony asks with an exaggerated leer.

_More exercise_ , Natasha says confidently. _If you’re tired enough your body will collapse and sleep out of self preservation._ She takes Tony to the gym and kicks his ass up one way and down the other.

And Tony  _does_ sleep that night, but it’s probably just due to the concussion.

 

*******

** No Real Monsters **

One night a monster was born in New York.

And a huge room, so loud only an hour before with raucous laughter and conversation, the clanking of utensils against plastic trays, was silent. Dinners sat abandoned on tables until the cafeteria staff finally admitted that none of the SHIELD agents would be coming back anytime soon. They cleaned up silently, as if afraid to upset the stillness.

Outside it was anything but still, and Harlem was anything but silent as it burned. Soldiers fired guns and people ran in all directions, mindless in their fear. Helicopters flew too low overhead, shining lights everywhere and contributing nothing but a thudding beat of rotors that only made things feel more frantic.

Natasha was picking her way through some sad gelatinous meatloaf and listening to Clint guffaw with Rumlow over some stupid story when the alarm sounded. There was one beat of shocked surprise before everyone reacted, not on instinct but instead on the comfort of rigorous training, boots thudding through hallways, hands reaching for gear. No one seemed to know what was happening, only that something had attacked the city, that the shit they’d spent years preparing for had finally hit the fan.

“Clear the streets,” Fury ordered as they piled out of the transport. He looked tense. Coulson stood beside him calmly with a pair of binoculars. “Get as many people as you can to safety.”

Natasha waved people along with flares in her hands, wishing they were her pistols instead, feeling too open and unprotected. “Get down to the subway! Move it!” She put as much authority as she could into her voice, hoping they would see she represented safety, so they would do as she said. So they could live.

“Come on, go go go! This way, come on, let’s all go the same way, damn it!”  Hawkeye was always better at working with civilians, better at crowd control—maybe because he could put on a smile and kindly voice even in a disaster, while her go-to reaction was always anger or impatience. Or maybe people just listened to him more because he was a man, and panicked groupthink always made people turn to the man who looked like he knew what he was doing, even if he actually had no idea. Rather like Clint. 

There was another explosion from a block or two away, and a roar. An honest to God fucking _roar_ in New York City. Natasha was torn by two raw impulses—to go and see what made such a sound, safety be damned, or to run like hell from it, _orders_ be damned. Clint’s eyes met hers and she knew he thought the same. He called out something to her, but his lips moved soundlessly now, drowned out by the din around them.

And a minute later there they were—not one monster but _two_ , two huge creatures that looked somewhat like men but fought like rage and insanity embodied. Wherever they crashed and collided there was also more flying debris and fire and panicked screams.

Natasha watched and felt more than just anger and terror. She was  _offended_. It wasn’t the right word, exactly, for what she felt, but close enough—something deep and primal and fundamentally human inside of her insisted that these creatures were _wrong_ , were an abomination. They should not exist, and she found herself blinking hard, as if her mind just couldn’t process what it was seeing, kept trying to cancel it out. 

As the monsters came into clear view a layered chorus of “What the fuck?” and “Permission to open fire!” and “Oh my God!” screamed in tinny voices over the commline, echoing her thoughts.

Fury’s voice was somehow louder than the rest— “It’s the General’s rodeo, we’re just here to provide support.”—and he didn’t sound as if he liked that at all, but even the director of SHIELD answered to someone else.

Natasha shoved bricks and glass off a man laying on the sidewalk and start to haul him up; he was alive, but half of his face and shoulder had been sheared right to the bone. She immediately abandoned him to move to the next person, also bleeding badly, but not so gravely. This one she could save.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Clint had told her years ago, in Russia, how it could be for her, how they could be together. It would be hard, and it would be terrible, but it was a whirlwind she knew well and could understand. The evil Natasha had been recruited to fight was supposed to be of the familiar, human variety. There weren’t supposed to be monsters. Not _real_ ones.

Soldiers fired at the larger of the two creatures, the more aggressive one, but the bullets did nothing to slow its advance. There wasn’t even any blood. More people poured out into the streets as the monsters threw one another into buildings.

The pale monster roared.

The green monster roared back.

A little girl, her face slack and pale and covered in dust, was too scared to cry as Clint picked her up. His mouth moved over her ear, babbling comforting words that could really mean nothing on a night like this.

Natasha dragged the bleeding man along and kept shouting, urging people forward.

And behind them all the monsters fought, testament to a world gone insane.  
 

****

******

**Haunted**

When Clint was a little boy, he was afraid of ghosts. He was mostly afraid that one hid in his closet—the door hung crookedly after Dad had broken it and wouldn’t close properly—scared that it peered out at him while he slept, just waiting to grab a little boy's hand or ankle if it hung off the edge of the bed. Mom laughed and said he was silly, and what's more _Barney_ said it was silly, and his word was law. If Mom and Barney said there were no ghosts, then there probably weren't.

When Clint was a somewhat older boy, he was still afraid of ghosts. Not the one that lived in the closet; he missed that ghost, missed the closet that it didn't really live in, missed the house built around the closet with the door that wouldn't close. Now he was afraid of the ghosts that came in his dreams. Mom, with broken teeth and blood in her hair, pleading and crying with arms outstretched—always out of his reach, never able to be saved. But even worse was Dad, who loomed tall and shouted while the whole world cowered. Dad, who was dead but somehow still around and still powerful.

Now, as an adult, Clint welcomes ghosts. He sees Barney, who is, so far as he knows, not actually dead at all, but may as well be—Clint hasn't seen or heard from his brother since they were teenagers. He also sees Phil, who really _is_ dead—his heart pierced by the spear that had broken Clint's in the same moment. Clint sees and hears Barney and Phil all around him, whispering, scolding, advising.

_Run faster! You don't want to be the slowest, do you?_ a ten year old Barney urges as Clint sprints through a forest, breathing hard—Captain America running tirelessly far ahead of him, Iron Man flying above.

"My legs aren't as long as yours," Clint whispers, an echo of his younger self, though he's as tall now as Barney ever was. He smiles to himself a little, imagining Barney running beside him, just as they used to race home from school. Neither of them really wanted to go home, but they raced all the same, because that's just what brothers did.

_I think you've done enough now_ , Phil scolds in the archery range, resting his chin over Clint's shoulder the way he used to, tilting his head so that their temples touch. _What are you trying to prove_?

"Everything," Clint murmurs back. He fires an arrow, his fingers bleeding despite the guards, then grabs for another as Phil sighs at him.

_Let's climb that water tower_ , sixteen year old Barney challenges gleefully. _I bet I can get to the top first!_

"I won't always be younger than you," Clint warns, grinning as he scales it nimbly. He sees the shadows of two boys high in the Big Top adjusting the rigging—filling out now that they have more food, muscles starting to ripple under their shirts as they grow stronger from all the physical labor. Clint hooks one ankle around the tower ladder and fires arrows half hanging from it. Natasha frowns but Clint hears Barney’s whoop of delight and smiles, too.

Barney doesn’t have to be a ghost in his ear. Barney could be real again.

“You can find him,” Steve says. He knows a little something about losing people, of being alone. “You have all the resources of SHIELD, and Tony and JARVIS to make up any shortfall. You could at least find out what happened to him. It’s not too late for you.” Steve leaves the ‘Like it is for me _’_ unspoken, but the words hang in the air nonetheless. “You could _know_ , Clint.”

But Clint can't explain it to Steve because he can hardly understand it himself. That he can’t bear to know what Barney is like today—if Barney's red hair is receding, if he has laugh lines and a man's middle aged belly. If Barney has children—and if they’re happy kids in summer camps and music classes, or instead underfed and wary kids with black eyes and knobby backbones. If he has an adoring wife that kisses him or one that cringes when cars pull into the driveway. If Barney has escaped their childhood as well as Clint pretends to or if he has grown into another version of their father.

The Avengers want Clint around, want him to be on the team. They like to pretend that he is their equal. It’s simultaneously mystifying and flattering beyond measure, that people like Tony and Natasha and Steve and Bruce would be interested in a circus freak who has failed out of everything important, has fucked up every measure of adulthood. Clint can't ever be like them, no matter how hard he tries. He can't make any of it really work when ghosts follow him around all the time.

He watches Bruce push down the Hulk daily, hourly, and Mom whispers  _The last time was just an accident; he didn’t mean it. It won’t happen again, he promised._ Her eyes were always as hopeful and disbelieving as Bruce’s are now.

Steve is strong and Natasha is fierce but Dad insists _I’m stronger, I’m scarier_ , and Clint wonders if that will ever stop sounding true.

Tony calls him Hawkeye and Legolas and Tweetie and Barton while Phil whispers  _Clint Clint Clint Clint_.

They’ve left the earth but they haven’t left _him_.

 

*******

**And The Haunt**

JARVIS doesn't wish for things, not the way that people do. Instead he sees everything, and wishes, in his own way, that he could change things. Wishes he could use the things he sees and knows to make life better for the people he is tasked to care for.

He sees Tony lonely and feels relief in those moments when his master is with a friend. He wishes those friends would drop in more often to offer companionship, in whatever form it takes. Wishes his master would send out as many invitations to interaction as possible, to draw the others in, and sighs to himself whenever Tony uses words to push them away, instead.

"You wouldn't understand, JARVIS," Tony sometimes says, usually when it’s late and he’s drinking and feeling morose and philosophical. "The human heart is mysterious to us all. You can't understand because I made you, and _I_ can’t understand it—not _any_ of it.”

But JARVIS thinks he does understand, a little. Maybe even more than Tony does, because he sees more than his creator can.

He is not to record what goes on in their private quarters, is not to observe, is "turned off" in those areas so far as they know. But what they don't realize is that JARVIS _is_ Avengers Tower, and can never be off, not entirely, will always be watching in some capacity, even if he cannot act on or respond to what he sees.

They all have nightmares. JARVIS longs to wake them up and cannot, watching as they twitch and gasp themselves awake, stay shaking afterwards. Three of them exercise to punishing extremes, sometimes alone, sometimes together, encouraging one another long past the point that JARVIS would stop them. He monitors their heartrates, ready to respond if it gets to a point of needing medical assistance, but so far they’e always stopped before that happens. Two hide food throughout their apartments, even though their cabinets are full to bursting, check on their caches frequently. They look unhappy when they do this, instead of reassured. One cuts his skin methodically, then treats and bandages the areas in an obviously well practiced ritual. He heals fast and smiles broadly, and no one other than JARVIS ever knows.

JARVIS watches it all happen and says nothing to stop them. It's not allowed that he should know of these things.

But he does.

One night Bruce puts his hands over his face and JARVIS wants to tell him that Steve is also awake, awake and sitting in the dark and has been staring out his bedroom window for hours. They could be talking, _should_ be talking to each other, because both are lonely in the night and there's no reason either of them should be, when the other is awake and also in need of a friend.

He sees a thousand ways they could save each other, and yet they never seem to. They miss looks, signs, and subtle entreaties for help because they can't see it like he does—all of it at the same time. He wishes he could explain it to Tony in a way that would make him understand, in a way that his master could make sense of it all and fix it, the way he says he wants to.

JARVIS doesn’t long for things the same way people do, but sometimes he dreams that Tony had built him with hands, so when they are sad, when they are hurt—that he could reach out with those hands and hold theirs.

 

*******

 

              

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, if you caught it before I reconsidered and quickly deleted it, there was a Loki story (“Candy”) right after Tony’s. It just didn’t fit with the others, no matter how hard I tried to shoehorn it in. And boy, how I tried...it was my favorite.
> 
> Another time, Trickster. Another time. *shakes fist*


End file.
